David J. Apple

He had one brother, Robert born in 1937 who predeceased him in 1994.

David J. Apple (September 14, 1941 – August 18, 2011) was an ophthalmic pathologist who conducted research on the pathology of intraocular lens complications as well as ophthalmic surgery in general.

He was a medical historian and biographer of Sir Harold Ridley, the inventor of the intraocular lens (IOL).

"He often stated that Harold Ridley changed the world. What we can say about David Apple is that he vastly improved the world that Harold Ridley changed"

Apple founded the Center for Developing World Ophthalmology while he was Professor of Ophthalmology and Pathology at the Storm Eye Institute, Charleston SC.

His laboratory is an official Collaborating Center of the Prevention of Blindness Programme of the World Health Organization (WHO) and his research and meetings with WHO officials was instrumental in providing information to WHO on which type of IOL should be used in cataract surgery in developing countries.

David Joseph Apple was born in Alton, Illinois on September 14, 1941 to Joseph and Margaret Bearden Apple.

David Apple attended East Alton-Wood River High School located in Wood River, IL and graduated in 1959.

He was a graduate of Northwestern University, University of Illinois College of Medicine and served his internship and residency in Pathology at Louisiana State University.

He was Assistant and subsequently Associate Professor of Ophthalmology under Morton F. Goldberg, MD at The University of Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary and Abraham Lincoln School of Medicine in Chicago from 1971 to 1975.

He then completed his residency in Clinical Ophthalmology under Frederick C. Blodi, MD at the University of Iowa in 1979.

In 1980 he completed his residency in ophthalmology at the University of Iowa.

In Salt Lake City during the 1980s, Apple started to study intraocular lenses (IOLs), including those explanted lenses which had been removed (explanted) from the eye, following complications.

His scientific papers on IOLs attracted the interest of Harold Ridley, the British inventor of the intraocular lens.

Through mutual contacts Ridley asked David Apple to visit him at his home near Salisbury in England.

Thus began a friendship which did much to legitimise and restore Ridley's reputation as the inventor of the IOL and Apple's reputation as the foremost researcher in IOL research.

He published the English version as Pathology of the Eye, in 1986.

Apple moved to South Carolina in 1988 to become Professor of Ophthalmology and Pathology, Professor and Chairman at the Storm Eye Institute, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston.

During his Chairmanship of the Department of Ophthalmology in Charleston from 1988 to 1996 he successfully led the effort to raise $8.8 million to complete a three-floor expansion and general renovation of the Eye Institute.

When he returned, he resigned from the Chair and became Director of Research for the Department.

His laboratory in Charleston (and at later sites: Salt Lake City, Sullivan's Island and Heidelberg) was an official Collaborating Center of the WHO Prevention of Blindness Programme.

4) The Binkhorst Lecture Medal in 1988.

In co-authorship with Prof. Dr. Gottfried O.H. Naumann he published in 1990 Pathologie des Auges, a German-language ocular pathology textbook.

In the late 1990s he developed a serious illness (self-diagnosed – correctly – as a metastatic cancer at the base of the tongue.) Between 1999 and 2011 he had numerous bouts of pneumonia and was frequently hospitalised – most seriously with a cerebral vascular stroke two years after his move to Salt Lake City.

Besides ophthalmology, Dr. Apple took an interest in classical music – he served on the Board of the Charleston Symphony, the Board of the Charleston Ballet Theatre and was active in Chamber Music Charleston.

His meeting with WHO Programme director Dr. Bjorn Thylefors of the Prevent Blindness Division, was instrumental in providing information to WHO on which type of IOL should be used in cataract surgery in developing countries and Apple wrote on the subject in 1991.

Dr. Apple married Ann Addlestone In 1995 and became stepfather to Scott E. Kabat and Jacqueline B. Kabat.

Through his brother, Robert V. Apple's family, he had one nephew: Lee B. Apple and two nieces: Rana Apple Ford and Dione Apple Badkar, all from California.

In 1998 he became the only American to have been selected to give the European Guest Lecture at the Oxford Ophthalmological Congress, held annually at the University of Oxford.

He held the Pawek-Vallotton Chair of Biomedical Engineering and was Director of the Center or Research on Ocular Therapeutics and Biodevices until 2002.

He returned to Utah in 2002 and transferred his Center for Intraocular Lens Research back to Salt Lake City, Utah: the city where he had begun his IOL-research.

His career was distinguished by being the only ophthalmologist to have received the four most respected honours in his field:

1) The Life Achievement Honor Award by the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO)

He received the Senior Honor Award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) in San Diego, CA. He was elected in 2003 to the German Academy of Research in the Natural Sciences Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher 'Leopoldina.

3) The ASCRS Innovator's (Kelman) Award in 2005

In 2006 Apple received an award from the International Intra-Ocular Implant Club - the IIIC Medal.

His subject was "Sir Harold Ridley and his Fight for Sight" in the centenary year of Ridley's birth.

2) The AAO Ophthalmology Hall of Fame award in 2007

At the 2012 meeting of the ESCRS in Milan, the Commemorative Lecture David J. Apple The Father of IOL Pathology, was given by Steve Arshinoff MD of Canada:

"David was the first IOL pathologist. He was an 'IOL doctor’s doctor', as pathologists often are. He taught us to respect our heritage – those whose struggles to innovate enriched our abilities to care for our patients, but to remember: Most innovations fail. He also taught us to be cautious with the latest innovation, and to study the long-term effects of each new IOL or gadget, before fully accepting it."